10:30am Monday 16th November 2009
By Tom Moseley
RESIDENTS have hit out at plans to open a rehabilitation centre for single mothers in their area.
An application has been submitted to convert a dental surgery in Sudell Road, Darwen, into a residential care centre for women with drug and alcohol problems and their children.
A drug addiction expert has wel-comed the plans, saying there is a “massive need” for the service.
But people living around the site, which is near the new Darwen Academy and a care home for elderly people, said it was the wrong location.
Angus Moncrieff, 33, of Sudell Road, has helped organise a petition against the proposals.
He said: “We have all paid our taxes and contributed to the area, then something like this comes along. It will bring the area down.
“There is already a drug problem in the area, so this won’t help at all.”
He also raised concerns about children walking past on their way to the new academy, and the traffic and parking problems.
Fellow resident John Squelch, 76, has lived in Sudell Road for 40 years.
He said a residential area was the wrong place for such a facility, adding: “Every house will be devalued.”
According to the plans, submitted by Catherine Floyd, of Oswaldtwistle-based Station Plans, the centre will have eight staff and offer anger management classes, counselling and treat-ment to up to eight women at a time.
Father Jim McCartney, whose renowned THOMAS rehab centre in Blackburn uses the same abstinence-based treatment model, said there was a massive need for female rehabilitation.
“The public tends to stigmatise people with drug problems.
"I can understand some reasons why they do, but a lot of these people really want to change their lives and the only way they can do that is by creating a recovery environment.”
The plans will go before the borough’s planning committee.
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